France's Persistent Pessimist Feels Terror and Triumph

Last week, before Marc Lièvremont's remodeled France side played Scotland, the scrum-half, Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, was managing a passable imitation of Eeyore, AA Milne's lovably incorrigible pessimist. Before the trip to Edinburgh, Elissalde was certain France would have a hard time in the Scottish capital. He was, he admitted, "incredibly worried", and he said so publicly, repeatedly.

He was at it again this week: "I'm afraid for Saturday as well: everything is too beautiful." This is not completely irrational: fear, said the scrum-half, is important. It keeps you on your toes. "I believe fear should be within us all the time. Not a bad fear, which makes you turn in on yourself, but something which lets you know you are always in danger."

Within minutes of last Sunday's stylish, exciting three-tries-to-nil victory, which had a totally straightforward look about it, the 30-year-old Toulouse player was already trying to avoid euphoria. "No triumphalism," he repeated several times, before underlining that the unstable-looking Irish may provide a sterner challenge than the apparently settled Scots. "We don't know whether Sunday was down to a very good French team or a poor Scottish team or a bit of both. But Ireland will be better than Scotland."

Following Lièvremont's clear-out of the World Cup squad plus a wave of retirements, the scrum-half has suddenly become far more influential on the pitch, together with another "veteran", Damien Traille. In terms of running the game last Sunday, he had more decisions to make than the captain Lionel Nallet, who has admitted he had surprisingly little to do.

On Sunday, Elissalde was juggling roles, setting the tempo as the forwards drove, calling quick penalties and nursing the inexperienced fly-half François Trinh'Duc, as well as initially doing the place-kicking. Clearly, he has delighted France's new coach, who made much of the way his scrum-half guided the team last weekend.

Asked to explain why France looked so different last Sunday, Elissalde began by pointing out that in some ways they are not that different to the model Bernard Laporte created. "You don't make a team in five days, a lot of work has been done in the clubs and by the France trainers in the past, and that paid off today. You don't create a dynamic game such as we managed to produce on Sunday overnight.

"I believe we had the ability to play like that before and we just showed what we can do in terms of rugby: the set-piece was good, the defense and discipline were good. We had these things before so we should give credit to the people who put them in place. You have to think about people like David Ellis and the previous staff, who made our defense so solid.

"Playing at La Rochelle, at Toulouse and under Bernard Laporte I've learned that the foundation of the game is defence and the set-piece and against Scotland they worked and allowed us to have enough ball. You don't build these things in five days - we had just one half-hour defence session [last week]."

But surely, something must have been said by Lièvremont and his fellow coaches Didier Retière and Emile Ntamack to put a less inhibited face on the grim foundations of the Laporte era? "The trainers just asked us to let ourselves go and above all not to cough up the ball in our own half. They took all selection pressures off us. We weren't playing with our heads on the line. We just had to have the right state of mind on the pitch."

Under Laporte, France often looked nervous, unwilling to move the ball for fear of doing something wrong. Last Sunday, Elissalde admitted, on the other hand, they knew they were "allowed" to make mistakes, even felt they had the right to lose the match, as long as the errors were born of the desire to experiment. "We didn't have a sword hanging over us, a guillotine waiting to fall if we missed two passes," said Elissalde.

"The trainers insisted on our moving the ball, the players moving around the ball and around the defense in relation to the ball carrier. It's not something that is simple to put together. At Toulouse we try to play like that and there are days when it simply doesn't work. But they didn't want us to be completely lunatic either. We just managed to play the balls that needed to be played."

This week, the new-look France have faced a old problem: managing expectations. Here, France's Eeyore acknowledges that he knows the game. "What I remember from my first selection eight years ago is that after matches like this I was always very sure of myself, of my own quality, of my rugby, and in the next match I wasn't so good. So we have to guide the young players towards a bit more self-control."

Tomorrow, says the scrum-half, "the match will be [played] at a higher tempo. Ireland will kick more. They will be more consistent in what they show on the pitch. We have to be ready for a tougher challenge than Scotland, because they have a huge amount to prove."

There is history here, of course: two years ago France ripped the side in green apart only to leak a bucket load of late tries and come close to defeat. Elissalde counsels care, if not caution: "With France, there is often a high followed by a low.

We have trouble repeating good results. We have to make sure we don't go over the top and get carried away with thinking we can move the ball from our own 22 at any moment."

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